“Our voices within Asian heritage and culture goes beyond this region,” Tolentino shares, speaking on the importance of Asian Heritage Month which occurs annually in May. “The deepness of Asian heritage is the fact that we have such a breadth of Asian culture that is very much alive in this country.”

As part of its EXchanges 2025 program – co-facilitated by Diane Roberts, Rosemary Georgeson and Lopa Sircar – this workshop encourages participants to explore their ancestry through creative expressions.

Creating space

Asian Heritage Month is a chance to recognize the diversity of Asian communities and their contributions within and beyond Canada, says Tolentino.

“I’ve had the good fortune to create work that highlights my culture as Filipino,” he adds. “A lot of work that I’ve created [is] transcontinental; [they] had a lot of roots in the Philippines but [were] also expressed in a contemporary manner from a Western view.”

Co. ERASGA has connected Filipino and other artists of colour across the country’s diasporas – even extending their reach to the Philippines.

Tolentino was first introduced to dance in the Philippines, participating in traditional Filipino dances at school. After immigrating to Canada in 1983, he continued with dance classes, eventually falling in love with the contemporary style’s liberating feeling.

“The freedom to not so much elevate the body, but to be grounded,” he explains. “It’s that relationship of weight and body to the earth.”

The founding of Co. ERASGA in 2000 resulted from Tolentino’s desire to dance and choreograph his own works – a journey that involved overcoming financial barriers.

“I think back on how I’ve gone through the ups and downs of what it’s like to be an artist in this city,” he shares. “But to continue to persist, to be an artist, to create a voice for me as an Asian artist…there’s so much story behind it.”

In the company’s early days, funding was a challenge. Tolentino recalls how artists of colour struggled to be recognized in the mainstream media when creating works related to their heritage. The founder is grateful that tides are shifting, as artists of colour continue to gain prominence on various art scenes.

An honouring of roots – through a transcontinental connection – has been central to Tolentino’s work. Since 2014, the company has offered the AET Koreograpiya Award (or the Alvin Erasga Tolentino Choreographic Award) to support Filipino dancers working in the Philippines.

“There’s just so many talented artists in the Philippines, but [they] really have no access to this kind of opportunity,” he shares. “It’s not a lot of support, but it’s enough to give a little bit of freedom to a young artist to develop a craft, to develop a piece of project, or maybe to take professional development.”

An ongoing journey

The upcoming Vancouver workshop provides participants with the opportunity to connect with their roots. Open to anyone, regardless of their artistic backgrounds, the workshop will encourage participants to explore ancestry through their memory, body and connections to the environment.

“Each individual can offer a word, a text, and then eventually it turns into a kind of movement,” Tolentino shares of the workshop. “Moving together, connecting to the very idea that our corporal, our body is connected together, that we’re not separate, we’re all connected.”

For the past four years and counting, the company has focused on addressing environmental changes through land-based practices. The founder is currently working with three Indigenous choreographers – Michelle Olson, Starr Muranko and Margaret Grenier – on Eternal Gestures.

“And the things that I’m learning is really going back to grade one and making me realize why I dance; that dance is more than dance, dance belongs to everybody,” he adds, speaking of his role as an interpreter rather than creator. “That it is about community, that it is about family, that it is about relationship to all the things around us.”

Set to premiere in October, Tolentino sees this project as a “gift” to the company and its community, an opportunity to honour these three matriarchs as mothers, sisters, caregivers and knowledge keepers. The founder has no plans of slowing down – he hopes to continue collaborating with Indigenous communities and provide new artists a necessary platform.

“I have work that needs to be danced, and I want to be the representation of my craft, but also of who I am as an individual and as an artist of colour for the last 25 years and moving forward – that cannot stop, that has to continue,” he adds.

Community engagement

Celebrations like Asian Heritage Month provide spaces for communities to express themselves, says local artist and educator Jeremiah Mari Gan Carag. A trained opera singer, Carag is also an active performer in the local theatre scene, particularly in projects showcasing his Filipino heritage.

“I think [Filipino stories are] more relatable to me than being in a Renaissance wig and singing in Italian,” he shares, while noting his appreciation for the operatic arts.

For the artist, engaging with Filipino stories not only feels more genuine, but also empowering. He has been workshopping Davey Samuel Calderon’s Deep Fried: A Pinoy Musical! which explores the effects of gentrification on the Filipino community in Joyce-Collingwood.

“One of my values is presenting the truth, and I think the only way that you’re able to do that is if you’re engaged and connected,” he shares.

His individual artistic practice has also been rooted in Filipino culture through the musical genre of Kundiman. Traditionally a serenade professing love and loyalty, the form has taken on different shapes, evolving into patriotic hymns and even lullabies. Carag’s performance at last year’s ExplorASIAN Festival was inspired by the Kundiman’s evolution both within the Philippines and its diasporas – a sign of the genre’s ability to express Filipino stories.

“I was experimenting with the idea of a theatrical production of Kundiman,” he recalls. “But this time interweaving it with my own immigrant experience and also other people’s experience.”

Carag is a music facilitator in Co. ERASGA’s MigARTion project. The project has offered migrants from the Filipino community and beyond the opportunity to engage in artistic practices – ranging from singing, drawing, writing, dancing and acting. Spearheaded by Tolentino and his team, MigARTion’s other facilitors include writer Christopher Nasaire, theatre director Dennis Gupa and poet Karla Comanda.

“The intention is to engage migrant communities with arts because sometimes it’s not always as accessible to them,” Carag explains. “The hope is that they’re able to use art to express themselves.”

During these workshops, the facilitator guides participants in breathwork for singing and ways to interpret a piece. Participants often find an outlet for expressing difficult emotions – one that also promotes wellness and challenges the idea of art as an elitist endeavour.

Co. ERASGA has designed the project to offer financial incentives, including bus tickets and free meals for participants. A sign of its success, the project has also gone on tour visiting Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Victoria. For Carag, facilitating these MigARTion workshops has transformed him into a student, learning from the participants.

“Art is a reflection of community, and I think that it’s worth sharing,” he adds. “I think we are also better artists because of the community.”

To celebrate Asian Heritage Month and their milestone year, Co. ERASGA will also screen the critically-acclaimed film SOLA – showcasing three solos choregraphed by Tolentino in 1999 and performed at the Firehall Arts Centre in 2000 – for free on their website during the month of May.

For more information on Co. ERASGA, see www.companyerasgadance.ca

For more information on Jeremiah Mari Gan Carag, see www.facebook.com/jeremiahmaricarag